


and from your lips (i bring life)

by someawkwardprose



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s03e04 Children of Earth - Day 4, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, M/M, Series 03 Fix-It: Children of Earth (Torchwood), Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29498406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someawkwardprose/pseuds/someawkwardprose
Summary: The story goes like this: two lovers in a cold room, dying.One dies, one wakes up.The story cannot be changed. The story must play out like this.(But time is a little more flexible than one might think.)
Relationships: Gwen Cooper & Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 43
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my brain and i are not on speaking terms rn but this fic idea smacked my ass and told me to make it hurt.  
> shout out the Very Specific Person who inspired this (u know who u are) and BIG shout out to nik, @princessoftheworlds, for editing quickly when i realised my self restraint and i weren't on speaking terms either.
> 
> part two is coming. soon. ish.

The story goes like this: two lovers in a cold room, dying. One confesses, the other cannot. One dies first, and the second kisses him, and follows.

One dies, one wakes up. 

The story cannot be changed. The story must play out like this. 

(But time is a little more flexible than one might think.)

* * *

(In one universe, eternity is weathered by a man who was cursed by love. It will happen in this one too. There are some universal constants.) 

* * *

Ianto wakes up, and _knows._

“No,” he says, before he can even sit up. “No, you bastard. No-” 

Gwen stares at him as he struggles onto his elbows, the words wrenched out of him with a furious sense of disbelief. His throat is raw, and his eyes sting, and he _aches_ , like he’s been dragged behind an eighteen-wheeler on a busy motorway. He can barely turn his head, but he has to, he has to _see._

“You fucking bastard,” he sobs, crawling over to the bodybag. Gwen moves to help him, and she’s crying, trying to touch him, but Ianto can’t even look at her, because _he’s right there_ , still and cold, and it’s nothing Ianto hasn’t seen already, it’s not _new_ , but it's different this time, because - 

“Wake up,” he chokes out, fisting his hands on Jack’s lapels. “Wake up, _damn you-”_

He’s crying, his throat thick with the weight of a grief he was never supposed to feel again. Wasn’t that the benefit of loving Jack? He would never hold all of Jack’s heart, and he was okay with that, because at least Ianto would never have to outlive his whole world ever again. 

“Fuck you, _wake up!”_ A scream rips its way out of his chest, and he sobs into Jack’s chest, right over his unbeating heart. 

“Oh, love,” Gwen says, because his best friend has always been smarter than everyone wanted to give her credit for. Her hand curls around his shoulder, pulling him to her chest, letting him cry into her shirt. “Ianto, I’m so sorry. He’s gone, love. He’s gone.” 

Ianto is between them, his two anchors, and knows it will be the last time they will ever be together again. 

* * *

The story goes like this: there is a man who has lost everything, and he is being asked to sacrifice more. 

The story goes like this: there is a man who is desolate and inconsolable in his guilt and grief. 

The story goes like this: there is a man so desperate for vengeance, he burns his own world down. 

(The story is almost the same. _Almost._ ) 

* * *

(“You loved my father,” Alice says, pressing her fingers into the open wound on his heart and coming back with sticky lifeblood staining her hands. “He...loved you?” 

The man - boy, she would say, if he didn’t look like a dead man walking, and an old familiar resentment burns low in her gut - looks at her with dead eyes. “What kind of a question is that?” 

She looks away. 

Alice had her answer the second she heard that her father had failed to wake up. Glancing at the man before her, she wonders how much of that resentment ~~_envy_~~ was misplaced. “What is your name?” 

“Jones. Ianto Jones,” he says, and laughs hollowly.

“Ianto.” She tastes the name on her tongue, feels the shape of the vowels and that Cardiff accent Alice would have had, if she’d hadn’t become Alice, if she’d stayed little Melissa Moretti, the centre of her daddy’s world. “Don’t destroy yourself. Not for him. He wouldn’t want that.” 

“He’s dead,” Ianto says. “He doesn’t get a say anymore.”)

* * *

He doesn’t know this woman, with her dark hair and dark eyes and guilt-borne, grief-struck fury. 

But the little boy stares at him with Jack’s eyes. 

Ianto has killed Jack enough times. He can’t do it again. 

The men don’t even think to stop him as he jumps over the machinery and throws himself into the circle, wrapping his arms and body around the boy, absorbing the wave. It _hurts_ , of course it does - it’s killing him, and this is only the second time Ianto has died (that he remembers), but he already knows it is not something that is _pleasant_ \- but the pain is okay. He drags Steven out of the circle, and falls on his back, even as the UNIT guards aim their guns. 

“Not one,” he croaks, his voice hoarse. “Not a single child.” 

“The threat-” 

The mother - Alice, Jack called her Alice, with a look of such love and devastation, and _god_ Ianto is so sick of fucking secrets - comes pounding in, snatching her child from his arms with a fierce desperation. He wonders if Jack would have done the same. 

“I will deal with the threat,” Ianto says darkly, and there must be something on his face that shows the depths of his heart right now, because the guards take a step back, and even Dekker swallows, nervous. “All the threats.” 

They shouldn’t have touched Torchwood. They shouldn’t have touched _Jack._ And they certainly shouldn’t have threatened Jack’s family. 

Ianto Jones had been Yvonne Hartman’s favourite for a reason. 

* * *

(The survivor leaves. That is a universal constant.) 

* * *

“I can come,” Gwen says for the ninth time. They’ve had this argument so many times, and her heart isn’t into it. 

“No, you can’t.” Ianto presses a hand to her belly, presses his lips to her forehead. “You have to stay here. Protect them.” 

“You can’t leave me,” she says, and her voice shudders. “Ianto-” 

“I will be back,” he promises, swears an oath on all he considers holy (a body in a freezer in a morgue; they won’t release it, damn them), and pulls her in for a hug. “I’m not leaving. I am getting even.” 

Taking down Whitehall hadn’t been easy, but it also hadn’t been enough. Scaring the 456 away just meant they didn’t pay. Ianto still hungers for something dark and tainted, and he is going to slake his bloodlust on the bastards who had started it all. 

“You have to come home,” Gwen begs. “Ianto, I can’t lose you too.” 

He kisses her again, this time on the full bloom of her lips, and thinks she’s beautiful, his brave, strong sister. She could survive anything, he thinks. If anyone could make eternity work, it would be Gwen Cooper. 

He won’t make her, however. (Love damned him and Jack both, but he will never, ever damn her with them.) 

“I’m coming back,” he repeats, and steps away, fiddling with Jack’s wrist strap. “But they have to pay.” 

* * *

The story ends: the survivor gets his revenge. He will never know if the price he paid was worth it. 

The story ends: he grieves. He is alone. 

The story ends. 

(In all universes, the 456 die screaming. This story has one change: the man who kills them does so with a smile on his face.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did NOT wait for a beta because i have no impulse control so this is probably hellish for commas. and is also the result of a four hour hyperfixated writing spree. girl help I haven't moved in so long my legs are numb. 
> 
> hope you enjoy!

The story ends: there is a man who died and came back, and he was alone. 

There was a man who died on board a space station thousands of years after he was born, a man who died for those he loved, and he was abandoned.

There was a man who died in his lover’s arms, and woke up cold. 

The story ends: there was a man who died. And then he woke up. 

(The story ends where it begins.) 

* * *

Jack wakes up silently. _No._

_No, no, no, not again, please, I can’t -_

“Shh, it’s alright,” a voice says, and it’s her voice, Gwen’s voice, and Jack can’t, he can’t do it, can’t open his eyes to a world without - 

_You were supposed to save him-_

“Wake up, Jack,” he says, and Jack’s eyes snap open, a hand already reaching up to grab at him. 

“Ianto,” he gasps, sobs. “Ianto-”

“It’s alright, Jack,” Ianto whispers, and his eyes are red. “I’m here. It’s okay.” 

“Ianto,” he repeats, unsure if he can say anything else. 

“It’s alright. You’re alright. I’m here.” 

* * *

The story begins here: Lisa Hallett dies. Lisa Hallet dies and the monster wearing her corpse throws Ianto Jones across the room, knocking him unconscious. Either the blow or the pool of water take him. By the time Jack Harkness reaches him, Ianto Jones is dead.

The story goes: Jack has just come back, and his blood burns with the energy of the time vortex. 

The story goes: his mouth tastes like life, and Ianto looks like death, and Jack is angry - raging, hateful almost - but he thinks that death does not suit Ianto Jones. 

(The story begins here: there was a cute little office boy who tricked Jack into hiring him, and Jack _wanted._ ) 

* * *

Ianto Jones is gone for six months. When he comes back, Anwen Williams is born, hale and hearty, with her mother’s voice and her father’s head, and Ianto’s hands are only red in the metaphorical sense. 

“Is it done?” Gwen asks, her eyes clear. She has not let go of him since he appeared at their door, and Rhys has had the good sense to take the baby for a walk. Neither of them should hear this. 

“Not quite,” Ianto says, and now that it’s over, Gwen can see that he is not the same man. The open wound in his heart festered, rotted, killed it, and now all that’s left is a hollow space in his sternum, a room to lock away all the love for Jack that Ianto will never use. 

“What else is there?” 

“Jack,” he says simply. 

“Bring him home?” His body is still property of UNIT, despite everything. She knows he is gone, that they can’t hurt him anymore, but the thought of those _monsters_ taking him apart, dissecting him like some experiment - 

“Bring him _back_ ,” Ianto says, and the first sign of life she sees is in his savage smile. 

“Ianto-” she begins, but what can she say? Jack was supposed to live forever, and he didn’t; Ianto was supposed to be mortal, and he isn’t. Nothing is as it should be, and Gwen has no say in whether the world works the way it was meant to. 

“He couldn’t face eternity without me,” Ianto says, and his voice is soft. Contemplative. “He couldn’t even tell me he loved me, at the end. But he couldn’t live without me.” 

She waits. Ianto has never been a man of many words, and he needs time. 

“He expects me to live forever without him, Gwen,” Ianto says, and he sounds, just for a second, terribly young. “And I can't do that.” 

“Alright,” she says simply, because what else can she do? “Tell me what you’re planning.”

* * *

The story goes: a woman glowing gold gives a man a gift. She gives him eternity. 

(She is dying.) 

The story goes: there is a man who loves her. He saves her with a kiss. 

(There is a theme.)

The story goes: he realises what she has done. He cannot fix it; he can only save one companion.

(The story goes: he is still a doctor.)

* * *

(“Rose didn’t know what she was doing.” The man before Ianto doesn’t look that much older than Ianto himself, but his eyes betray him. Just like they betrayed Jack, before. Grief ages you, and this man knows grief as intimately as Ianto does. Perhaps even more so. “You have to understand.” 

“You hurt him,” Ianto reminds him. “That had nothing to do with her.” 

Guilt is another thing the Doctor is very familiar with: he greets it like an old friend. This guilt is younger than most, but is far past time it is rectified. “I couldn’t stop it. I could just...mitigate some of the damage. I gave him the power to pass it on. But only if he really wanted to.

“He must have loved you very much,” he adds, and Ianto glanced away, blinking rapidly. 

“I’m getting sick of hearing that,” Ianto snaps. “Just tell me what I need to know.”

“Are you sure about this? It will be hard. You’ll hate each other more than you love each other, sometimes.” 

“Is it any easier alone?” Ianto asks, and the Doctor thinks about his empty TARDIS. He shakes his head.)

* * *

Jack hasn’t seen Ianto since they brought him here. 

Here being this house, Gwen’s house, in the middle of the countryside; Rhys had greeted him at the door with a curt nod and a swaddled baby. Ianto had vanished as soon as he saw Jack was settled. 

“Just give him time,” Gwen says when Jack paces, glancing out of the window where the rain pours and the wind howls. He doesn’t even know if Ianto took a coat. “It’s been hard for him.” 

If it had been Ianto, if Jack had lost Ianto and got him back, he wouldn’t let the man out of his sight ever again. But Jack had not lost Ianto, had never lost Ianto. ( _Until now,_ a voice whispers.)

He did this to himself, he knows. 

It takes hours before Ianto slinks in, soaked to the bone. Gwen tuts and forces him upstairs into a change of clothes while she puts the kettle on, and Jack wants to make a joke, but he doesn’t deserve to, not yet. His eyes keep flicking to the staircase until he hears descending footsteps. Gwen greets Ianto at the bottom with a mug, a kiss on the cheek, and a whisper in his ear, before going up them herself, and they are suddenly alone. 

“I guess we should talk,” Ianto sighs. 

Jack watches as he takes the armchair, deliberately out of Jack’s reach. That’s - okay. They can work up to that. (It doesn’t matter how much he wants to touch, wants to hold him and feel his heartbeat, feel him breathing - Jack can wait. He can.) 

“I’m sorry,” Jacks says. 

Ianto puts his mug down. His hands are shaking. “Do you even know what you’re apologising for?” 

“For - cursing you. Making you-” 

“Fuck you, Jack Harkness,” Ianto spits. “Do you know what I’ve been through this past year?” 

He stands up and starts pacing, and he’s talking, ranting: Jack digs his nails into the meat of his palms and keeps his mouth shut. Ianto tells him about Steven (Jack wants to rage himself, but refrains), about what he did to Whitehall, about the 456. He’s crying by the end of it, but glares at Jack when he moves to hold him, comfort him. 

“And the worst part - do you know what the worst part is, Jack? It isn’t that I wanted to die and couldn’t,” Ianto sniffs, scrubs at his eyes with his sleeve. “It was that I woke up, and you were gone. You promised, Jack. You promised you wouldn’t leave me.” 

Jack is crying too. “I couldn’t watch you die, Ianto. I had almost wrapped my head around living forever, but not without you.” 

“Did you think I would be able to manage it without you either?” Ianto yells. 

“No,” Jack says, and he can’t stop himself, he drags himself to his feet and reaches for Ianto, pulls him close. Ianto comes easily, like he can’t help himself either, fisting his hands in Jack’s shirt. Jack rubs a hand through Ianto’s hair, down his back. “But I’m selfish. Always have been. I couldn’t wake up without you, Ianto I - I love you.” 

They fall to the ground at some point, Ianto half on Jack’s lap, and Jack is rocking them while Ianto shakes apart in his arms. “Fuck you,” Ianto says. Then he catches Jack’s lips with his own.

* * *

(Bad Wolf gave Jack Harkness forever. The Doctor could not change that. What he could do was let Jack pass on the gift.)

(What the Doctor forgot: Time does not like single entities. 

Bad Wolf needed Rose Tyler and the TARDIS. Time likes pairs.

Jack Harkness gave a little of himself to Ianto Jones the day he first died, and the rest of it on the second.

You cannot half eternity. But you can share it.)

* * *

Jack can’t sleep. It’s okay, because Ianto is sleeping, sprawled out on his chest, ear just above his heart. It hurts Jack to think that Ianto needs this now, has all of Jack’s fears. He wonders what new things will haunt Ianto’s nightmares. 

He will have time to work it out. 

They have forever now, he and Ianto. The prospect isn’t as terrifying with someone by your side, and while Jack wishes for a lot of things (wishes he hadn’t had to curse Ianto, he hadn’t had to _hurt_ Ianto), he cannot regret this. 

“I love you,” he murmurs, and it doesn’t hurt like he thought it would. 

He could shout it from the rooftops now, could tell every passing stranger, but Ianto doesn’t need that. What Jack can do is tell him every day, with every action he takes. He will make sure Ianto Jones never feels alone ever again. 

* * *

The story begins: there was a man who woke up with a kiss. 

The story goes: two men die in each other's arms. One wakes up, the other does not. Until he does. 

The story does not end. It is not that kind of story. 

(Sometimes, time is a little more merciful than one might think.)

**Author's Note:**

> :))


End file.
